World War III began on February 24, 2022, when Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.
While the hot war is largely contained to Ukraine and the Kursk Oblast in Russia, it is now threatening to engulf the entire European continent.
Ukraine, backed by the US and NATO, is at war with Russia, who is supported by Belarus, China, Iran, North Korea, and Chechnya.
The conflict in Ukraine is not, as US Secretary State Marco Rubio wrongfully asserted, a ‘proxy war.’ Rather, it is a concerted attack by Putin against the West. And it is a war increasingly aided and abetted by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
To date, it has not looked like what Hollywood directors envisioned it to be. No mushroom clouds. No nightmare day after scenarios.
It is instead a global war by a thousand cuts. While its principal kinetic ground zero is in Ukraine, there are a growing number of flashpoints across the Sahel in Africa, Sudan, Syria, the Balkans, and the Baltic Sea.
They also include Russian and Chinese espionage, sabotage, influence peddling, disinformation campaigns. Increasingly, they are spanning the globe.
Europe and the US must wake up to this new reality.
A Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is test-fired as part of Russia’s nuclear drills from a launch site in Plesetsk
Zelensky has desperately tried to repair relations with Trump after their extraordinary White House bust-up (pictured)
Following last week’s meetings between Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, and US President Donald Trump, the British Prime Minister convened a meeting in London with European leaders to discuss future peace in Ukraine last Sunday
Ukrainian servicemen of the 24th Mechanized Brigade firing a MRLS BM-21 ‘Grad’ towards Russian positions
Ukraine is not ‘gambling with World War III,’ as US President Donald Trump recklessly claimed in the Oval Office. Quite the opposite, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals are fighting to survive and win it.
Team Trump, wittingly or not, is risking losing it. Shortly after Trump’s ill-advised fisticuffs with Zelensky at the White House, the US egregiously suspended military aid and intelligence sharing to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
On Thursday, retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, blamed Zelensky. He tried likening it ‘to hitting a mule with a two-by-four across their nose [to] get their attention.’ That briefs well until you consider Team Trump has yet to use that same two-by-four on Putin.
Bullying the victim is never a good look. Especially when Team Trump appears to be coddling the Kremlin at every turn.
Need an example?
Publicly, at least, Russia is setting all of the conditions for any ceasefire negotiations between Putin and Zelensky.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, ‘We see no place for compromise.’ He also asserted that any European peacekeeping force in Ukraine ‘would be treated the same as [a] NATO presence’ and that Moscow views French President Emmanuel Macron’s nuclear shield proposal as a ‘threat’ aimed at Russia.
Each time Lavrov is permitted to do so, a new and dangerous friction point between Europe and Russia gets created. Team Trump is quick to accommodate Moscow in order to get Russia to the negotiation table.
In that vein, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is right. Europe is at a pivotal crossroads in history.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, meets French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the European Council to discuss continued support for Ukraine and European defense, in Brussels
Vice President JD Vance (R) speaks during a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington DC on Friday, February 28, 2025
It is time for Europe to act. If London, Paris, Berlin, Brussels and Warsaw fail to seize the initiative, then Europe faces a perilous future largely dictated by Team Trump and Putin on terms advantageous to Washington and Moscow.
This nightmare scenario for Europe is coming into focus. On Thursday, Bloomberg News reported that Trump is now insisting that Ukraine agree to an immediate ceasefire as a condition for signing the Reconstruction Investment Fund deal. Conversely, no conditions apeear to have been established for Russia.
Later Thursday, Trump’s special envoy to Russia and the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, announced, ‘We are now in discussion to coordinate a meeting [next week] with the Ukrainians in Riyadh or even potentially Jeddah.’
Europe, as a whole, needs to slam on the breaks. While ending the war and bloodshed in Ukraine would be a good thing, ending it on Putin’s terms is not. Ceasefire or not, Putin’s long-term goals remain unchanged.
He wants all of Ukraine. And to commit genocide by erasing Ukrainian culture. If it gets it, his dagger will next be aimed at Eastern Europe. Likely the Baltic States.
There are signs Europe is realizing the continent is already embroiled in a third world war and that they are ill-prepared to fight it.
The €800 billion ‘ReArm Europe’ plan, proposed last week by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and unanimously adopted on Thursday, is a good start. Yet, we must be candid. It is not nearly enough.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and France’s President Emmanuel Macron hold a meeting during a summit at Lancaster House on March 2, 2025 in London
Spreading the increases out over four years ignores the stark reality that the Russian threat to Europe is immediate and is now underway in Ukraine. Enabling Ukraine today to defeat Putin is the better option.
It also ignores the reality that Russia is operating as a full wartime economy. Europe gradually increasing to 3% defense spending is no match for Russia allocating 6.7%. Especially given the alarming International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance Report that was released in February.
Presently, Europe is spending $457 billion annually on defense compared to Russia spending $146 billion. Yet, that is deceiving. If purchasing parity is applied, Putin is actually spending $462 billion.
Europe is in grave danger of falling further behind.
One way of stopping that is to cease inadvertently funding Putin’s war against the West. While significantly diminished, it is notable, according to the Russia Fossil Tracker, that Europe since the war in Ukraine began has purchased €206 billion of oil energy from Russia.
Contrast that to the European Union (EU) dispatching €118 billion in military and economic assistance to Kyiv; the U.K. has sent €8 billion.
Ukrainian forces firing a 120mm mortar towards Russian positions at an undisclosed location near Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region, on February 8
Russian soldiers ride atop Akatsiya self-propelled gun at an undisclosed location in eastern Ukraine
The irony should not be lost on anyone that Putin is using those funds to wage war on Ukraine and to rebuild a Russian army that one day soon may attack Europe. U.S. corporations and companies needed to be mindful as well.
More than anything, Europe needs a plan. Especially in an environment where Europe can no longer be assured that Trump will honor NATO’s Article 5. On Thursday, Trump said, ‘I think it’s common sense. If they don’t pay, I’m not going to defend them.’ He was referring to any NATO member that fails to meet its minimum defense spending goal.
Macron, at least for now, is sensing the gravity and the moment. In a televised presidential address to his people, he proposed extending a French nuclear umbrella to protect the entirety of the EU and potentially Ukraine.
He made it clear that Russia will not adhere to a ceasefire and that Moscow and Washington cannot be allowed to arbitrarily decide Europe’s fate. Europe, if it is to ensure its own safety and future, must come together and meet the challenge of empowering Zelensky and his generals to defeat Putin in Ukraine.
Essentially, Macron is arguing that the EU must ensure that Europe comes out on the winning side of World War III.
A view from the damaged site after the Russian missile strike on Kryvyi Rih
French Senator Claude Malhuret said it best. He warned in a speech to the French Parliament that, ‘The defeat of Ukraine would be the defeat of Europe. The Baltic States, Georgia and Moldova are already on the list. Putin’s goal is to return to Yalta, where half the continent was ceded to Stalin.’
Europe’s gathering storm is also devolving into a global conflagration. It is essential to understand that Putin’s kinetic war against the West is not contained to Ukraine and parts of the Russian Kursk Oblast.
It extends into the Balkans, Caucasia, Baltic Sea, Libya, Sudan, the Sahel in Africa, Syria and the entirety of the Middle East. Putin’s fingerprints, as we noted at The Hill, were all over the Oct. 7. attack as well.
Syria is also illustrative of how Putin is continuing to fight his war against the West on a global basis. Despite Russian forces being chased out of Syria by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebels driving pick-up trucks, Moscow is taking advantage of a vacuum created by Team Trump deciding to shun Damascus.
Putin is making new overtures to Syria’s de facto leaders. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, earlier in February, Moscow transferred $23 million to the terrorist group.
His aim?
Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a press conference at a summit at Lancaster House on March 2, 2025 in London, England
Secure Russia’s vital military installations in Syria including its Khmeimim Airbase and Latakia Naval Base near Tartus. These strategically located bases are used to project force to threaten European interests throughout the Mediterranean, Africa and Middle East.
Nor is Europe’s gathering storm – World War III by any other name – occurring in a vacuum. Russia is not acting alone in its war against the West.
Ukraine – and by extension Europe – is facing down a Russian army supported by Belarus, China, North Korea, Iran and Chechnya. This now includes the active frontline deployment by Russia of North Korean and Chechen troops.
China is Putin’s most active partner. Beijing, since the war began, has looked to take advantage of Europe’s distraction. Especially that of the UK and its Commonwealth of Nations’ interests in Africa, the Caribbean and Indo-Pacific.
Beijing, traditionally, seeks to exploit vacuums created by global events. For example, when Putin invaded Ukraine in February and March of 2014 and annexed the Crimean Peninsula, China began accelerating its fortifications of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
Rescuers of the State Emergency Service work to extinguish a fire in a building after a drone strike in Kharkiv
More recently, Xi has used the war in Ukraine to launch his intimidation campaign against Taiwan. In late February, Taipei accused China of ‘surging’ its military activities in the air and sea around the breakaway province.
Xi is also using Putin’s war against the West to wage his own saber-rattling operation squarely aimed at Canberra and Wellington. Also in late February, the People’s Liberation Army Navy recently conducted live-fire naval drills in the Tasman Sea – a body of water separating Australia and New Zealand.
Team Trump is betting that it creates a wedge between Russia and China. That is unlikely. Putin and Xi’s Putin’s ‘No Limits’ partnership with Chinese leader Xi Jinping is ironclad and sacrosanct as evidenced by their telephone call reaffirming their commitment on the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine.
Their partnership is only likely to grow. In outer space and throughout the strategic Northern Sea Route in the Arctic.
Beijing in support of its aims continues to expand its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Asia, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere – including Antarctica and the Drake Passage. For now, it is an economic footprint; however, Xi clearly intends its future dual use as key logistic hubs for global military force projection.
A handout still image taken from handout video made available by the Russian Defence ministry press-service shows launch of the Russian new intercontinental ballistic missile ‘Sarmat’ on Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Arkhangelsk region, (800 km north of Moscow), Russia, 20 April 2022
Winning this global war is now Europe’s priority one. In Churchillian terms, ‘Action This Day!’ is what is required.
Backstopping Ukraine is of the essence. Implementing ‘Sky Shield’ is one way to do it. 120 European jets enforcing a no-fly zone in Kyiv and Western Ukraine. In late May 2023, we called on then President Joe Biden to create a similar no-fly zone.
Europe must also begin actively defending itself against Russian and Chinese sabotage, espionage and influence peddling. Expect more Moscow and Beijing planned hybrid attacks on Europe itself. Beijing is becoming proficient at it too as evidenced by severing a key internet cable that connects Taiwan ‘to its outlying Penghu Islands.’
Past attacks in Europe have included electoral interference in Romania, placement of bombs at DHL facilities in Germany and the U.K., and the brutal Cold War-like assassination of Russian defector Maxim Kuzminov in Spain.
These attacks all clearly point back to Russia and the Federal Security Service (FSB). Once known as the KGB, whereas Putin’s conventional military has fallen short repeatedly, they are succeeding in bringing the Kremlin’s war to Europe. It is World War III by cloak and dagger because any other means – nuclear – would ensure mutual assured destruction.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky prepares for a plenary meeting at Lancaster House during the European leaders’ summit on March 2, 2025 in London
Dark as this gathering storm is, Europe must not fall for Putin’s nuclear bluffing. Between the UK and France, Europe has a sufficient nuclear deterrent to ward off Russia even if Putin is forced to withdraw from all of Ukraine.
No one loves Putin more than Putin. He is not suicidal. If deterred or defeated, he will just reset and try it again in the future. Thus far it has worked on Biden, and it appears to be working on Team Trump.
Starmer, Macron, von der Leyen and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk would be wise not to fall for it as they secure Europe’s defense.
Europe must stay strong. Moscow is convinced that Trump, as noted by Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, will accommodate Putin’s demands. That cannot be allowed to happen.
- Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as an Army intelligence officer.
